“I did what I had to do, Mills,” Phillip said.
“Give them up for the boy?”
“A battle. Not them. A battle, Mills.”
“I don’t think they go’n know the difference, Phillip,” Mills said. “Because I don’t know the difference. I don’t know if Peter know the difference—with a boy in that jail right now. Peter, you know the difference?” Mills asked.
“No, I don’t know the difference,” Peter said.
“I don’t think anybody else in here know the difference either, Phillip,” Mills said.
“I did what I had to do,” Phillip said. “I made a mistake, and I’m ready to admit it. But I did what I had to do. Three times I offered him money—three times. He wouldn’t take it. I didn’t have no other choice.”
“Well, we come up here to do something too,” Jonathan said, coming from round the piano and over to where the other men were sitting. “We come up here to listen and make a decision. I’ve been listening, and now I think we ought to vote like we said we’d do.”
“Vote?” Phillip said, looking at Mills, not at Jonathan.
“Yes, Phillip, vote,” Mills said.
“Vote on what?” Phillip asked. “I’ve already said we can’t go up there Friday.”
“We know that,” Mills said. “That’s not what we voting on.”
“What else can you vote on?” Phillip asked.
“Whether you go’n stay president of this committee, Phillip,” Mills said. “Nobody but the president coulda done what you did. He wouldn’ta listened to nobody else. Now we voting to see if you fit to be president, to make them kind of decisions.”
Phillip stared at Mills as though he could not believe what he was hearing. He looked round at all the others. All were watching him, except for little Mack Henderson who kept his head bowed. He looked back at Mills again, his jaws set so tight that his face trembled.
“Whether I’m fit to be president,” he said. “Whether I’m fit to be president. If I’m not fit to be president, who the hell in this room is?”
“We got a quorum,” Mills said. “We can vote on that.”
“Behind my back—whether I’m fit,” Phillip said, staring at Mills.
“You went behind backs too, Phillip,” Mills said, challenging him. “If you had come out in the open and told people who that boy was, none of this never woulda happened. But for four days you knowed, and you wouldn’t say a thing to nobody. For four days—and still you wouldn’t even go to your own wife. You went behind her back too. Your children backs. Not just the committee—the church, the community. You made your own decision all by yourself. And, yes, I say we vote to see if you fit to be president. Mack?” Mills said, looking down at Mack Henderson.
Little Mack Henderson shook his bald head. He wouldn’t look up. Mills continued to look down at him.
“Well, man, you voting, or you ain’t?” Mills asked.
Mack Henderson shook his head again. He had begun to sweat, and a white speck of light shone on his shiny scalp.
“Peter?” Mills said.
“No man ought to have that kind of authority,” Peter said. But he wouldn’t look at Phillip when he spoke.
“Aaron?” Mills asked.
“I have to agree,” Aaron said. “If one man can do it, why not every man, at any time?”
Mills looked at Jonathan. He didn’t have to ask him. He knew how he was voting.
“I vote that Reverend Phillip J. Martin be removed as president of the St. Adrienne Civil Rights Committee,” Jonathan said.
Mills stared at him. Not for the pompous way he had spoken, but he wanted to remind him that it was he, Jonathan, who had suggested holding a meeting and voting. Mills also wanted him to know that he, Jonathan, would be the next president, and that it would be his responsibility to make all the right moves. Jonathan looked steadily back at Mills. He was ready for the challenge.
“I vote with the majority,” Mills said. “Hawkins ain’t here, but we got four, that’s enough.”
“So I’m out as president, is that it?” Phillip asked.
“The committee voted that way,” Mills said.
“And Mr. Jonathan, there, he’s going to be the new president?”
“The committee hasn’t voted yet.”
“Sure,” Phillip said. “Sure.” He looked at Jonathan, who stood beside Mills looking very confident in himself. He had already taken on the pose of a new president, he was already feeling self-important. “So it’s up to you now, huh, boy?” Phillip said to him. “You fit to pass the word on to the people, huh? Not just the black and the white, but the Chenals and the Nolans—you the one most fit, huh?” Phillip grinned at him. “Boy, you got no idea what you up against. You think you know. Just ’cause you been out there eight years, you think you know, huh? You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. You don’t know your right hand from your left.”
“I’ll learn,” Jonathan said.
“You’ll learn?” Phillip asked him. “You think they go’n give you time to learn out there? They ain’t go’n even give you time to think. You think that’s a Sunday school out there, you think that’s what it is? Wait till you go up against somebody like Nolan.”
“I’m not afraid of Nolan,” Jonathan said with confidence.
“I know that,” Phillip said. “You don’t have enough sense to be scared of him—and that’s the danger, you not scared of nobody. But you go’n find out bravery ain’t all. Knowing when to move and what to say is just as important. And, boy, you got a lot to learn. Not just about white people, which takes more than any eight years; you got a lot to learn about your own people. You don’t even know nothing about them yet.”
“I’ll learn fast,” Jonathan said. “And I won’t forget who I’m working with, and who I’m working for.”
“Sure, boy,” Phillip said. “Sure. Now get the hell out of my house before I throw you out.”
“I don’t think you need to talk like that, Phillip,” Mills said.
“No?” Phillip said.
“No,” Mills said.
“That’s all right, Brother Mills,” Jonathan said. “I’m on my way.” He went as far as the door and turned to look back at Phillip. “I’m go’n break Chenal,” he said. “We can’t go against him Friday because you’ve fixed it that way. But I’m go’n break him.”
“You’ll break that Chenal, boy, I have no doubt of that,” Phillip said. “But you go’n always have a Chenal. I have no doubt that one day you’ll even be a Chenal.”
Jonathan grinned at him and turned to the others. “Gentlemen, I’ll be waiting outside.”
Aaron Brown and Peter Hebert followed Jonathan out of the room. Little Mack Henderson started toward the door, but stopped and looked back at Phillip. More than once he attempted to say something, but finally gave up and left the room shaking his head.
“I’m sorry this happened, Phillip,” Mills said. “Everybody out there is sorry this had to happen. But what else could we do, just forget it?”
“We all did what we thought was right,” Phillip said.
Mills picked up his hat from the couch.
“Why is that boy here, Phillip?” he asked.
“He came here to kill me, Mills. Kill me for raping his mother—almost thirty years ago.”
“That’s crazy,” Mills said. “You didn’t rape nobody.”
Phillip looked at him. “Didn’t I, Mills?”
“You loved her,” Mills said. “She loved you. I can remember that.”
“That’s right, we loved each other,” Phillip said, nodding his head. “We loved each other. But right now, Mills, I can’t even ’call that boy’s name. Tell them that for me, Mills. Tell them why I got my son out of jail. I just wanted to know his name.”
He left the room. But Mills didn’t move. He felt very bad. He felt very tired. He walked out the front door, wondering if he and the others had done the right thing.
Phillip went back into the kitchen and got one o
f the bottles of sherry and a glass and went to his office. The bottle had not been opened, and he ripped off the seal and half filled the glass. He drank it quickly, and he could feel it sweet and warm going down into the pit of his stomach. He poured more into the glass, this time nearly filling it. Then he stopped up the bottle and sat in the chair behind his desk. It was dark in the room, but he wouldn’t draw back the curtains or turn on the lights. He didn’t want to see himself thinking. He didn’t want to think at all, especially about what had happened only a few minutes ago, because he didn’t want to get mad. Still, he couldn’t help but think. And the more he thought the angrier he became. And the angrier he became, the more he drank. When he took a good look at the bottle he saw that he had drunk more than half of it, and he pushed it across the desk away from him.
I don’t know what the hell is going on, he thought. This must be a dream. This got to be a dream. Everything since last Saturday’s been one long nightmare. What the hell is going on, I don’t know.
How can I stand in my own house and let them bastards tell me I’m not fit to run this thing? I’m not fit. After all the work I’ve done. After I break the ground, after I show them how to plant the corn, then I’m not fit. I’m not fit. I shoulda knocked the hell out of Jonathan and throwed him and his little fit ass out of my house.
This got to be a dream, Phillip told himself again. I ain’t woke up from that fall yet. I’m still down there on the floor. I didn’t go to Nolan, I didn’t talk to that boy, I didn’t visit Nanane. And surely I didn’t stand in my own house and listen to that crap. No, I must still be on that floor.
But he knew he wasn’t on the floor and he wasn’t still asleep. He drank the last of the wine in the glass and pushed the glass away. Now he stared at the glass and the bottle. When was the last time he had done anything like this? He had never drunk in front of his godmother before, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had drunk alone.
He looked toward the door that led out into the hall. The house was quiet. He had not heard a word out of the children since coming home, and nothing from Alma either, since she went into the bedroom. He had to go to her—but say what to her. And say what to the children?
He looked at the bottle and the glass, but he changed his mind about drinking any more. He stood up, feeling very tired and a little drunk, and he steadied himself by holding on to the end of the desk. Then he left the office and went across the hall into the bedroom. Alma lay on top the covers, facing the wall.
“You go’n catch cold,” he told her.
She didn’t answer him.
“It’s getting late,” he said. “Don’t you think you ought to start supper?”
She still didn’t answer him, and he went around the other side of the bed to face her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry about what, Phillip?” she said without looking at him.
“Everything,” he said.
“It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right,” he said. “I shoulda come to you.”
“I’m not that important, Phillip.”
“You are,” he said.
“I’m not. I always knowed that.”
“That’s not true, Alma.”
She didn’t answer. She faced the wall, the left side of her face down in the covers. The spread was wet from where she had been crying.
He sat down on the bed beside her.
“I didn’t come to you because I didn’t know how to come to you. I didn’t know if you’d understand.”
“That’s how it’s always been,” she said. “You come to me for this bed, for nothing else.”
“That’s not true.”
She looked up at him now. “That is true, Phillip. For this bed. Cook your food. Follow you to that church. That’s all you married me for. You never come to me for any kind of problem. Now you try to do the same thing to them. But they won’t take it.”
“I pity little men.”
“That’s right—little men, Phillip,” Alma said. “That’s why they did what they did. They know you look at them as little men.”
“I made one mistake. How about all the other things I’ve done?”
“This was big for them. Especially Mr. Howard.”
“Getting my boy out that jail was big for me, too,” he said. “But nobody else can see that. Not even you.”
He was tired, and he shut his eyes and covered his face with both hands.
“I have to go to Baton Rouge,” he said, looking at her again. “I have to see Chippo Simon. I heard that Chippo seen the boy out there in California, and I have to talk to him.”
Alma was facing the wall again.
“You listening to me?” he asked her.
“Go on to Baton Rouge if you have to go to Baton Rouge, Phillip,” she said.
“I want you to talk to the children for me.”
She looked at him again. “Me talk to the children?” she asked. “Say what to the children, Phillip? Say something about their brother? Say what about their brother? I didn’t talk to their brother, you did. Look like you ought to be the one talking to the children.”
“I don’t know how,” he said.
“After all that’s happened, you still don’t know how?” she asked him. “Well, I don’t know how, neither.” And she faced the wall again.
Phillip got up from the bed. “I have to go to Baton Rouge,” he said. “I have to go find Chippo.”
He went around the bed to get his hat and overcoat from the closet.
“Why don’t you get up from there before you catch cold,” he said, looking at her. “Or get under the cover.”
She didn’t answer him, and he came around the bed to face her again.
“Alma, what you want me to say? What you want me to say I ain’t said already?”
“Nothing,” she said.
He sat down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll make it up to you when I come back,” he said.
“Don’t worry about making up to me, Phillip. Just make up to your children.”
“What you talking like that for?”
“You never worried about making up to me before.”
“I never told you all my problems because I didn’t want you worrying every time I left the house.”
“That’s not it,” she said. She turned over on her back and looked up at him. Her eyes were red from crying, and he could see the imprint of the spread against the side of her face. “That’s not why you never included me,” she said. “You never included me because you wanted to do it all yourself. Ever since I met you, Phillip, you been running, running, and running. Away from what, Phillip? Trying to make up for what, Phillip? For what you did to that boy? For what you did to his mon? For other things you did in the past? The past is the past, Phillip. You can’t make up for the past. There ain’t nothing you go’n find out in Baton Rouge. Nothing Mr. Chippo can tell you.”
“I have to go anyhow.”
“Sure, you have to go,” Alma said. “You always do what you want. This morning you did what you wanted. That’s why they voted you out. They can’t let you treat them like you treat me.”
“You ready to vote me out too?”
“That’s up to you, Phillip.”
“What d’you mean?”
“That’s if you still want me here?”
“I ever said anything else?”
“Not with words—no. By your action, many times.”
“You never said it before.”
“I been saying it for years, Phillip. You never had time to hear me.”
He stood up.
“I have to go,” he said.
“You ain’t go’n find out nothing in Baton Rouge, Phillip. Not a thing.”
He put on the overcoat and hat.
“What brought my boy back here, or what sent him back here I’ll find out in Baton Rouge. That’s important to me. I want to reach my boy. What I did this morning it seems like it
’s wrong to lot of people, but if he was in that jail right now, and that was all I had to offer, I’d do it all over again. I’ve paid some dues in this town, some heavy dues. Your life’s been threatened, my children’s lives been threatened, mine been threatened. All because I kept pushing for the people out there. Crosses burnt on my lawn, my house been shot in, my church been shot up—all because I kept pushing for the people out there. Well, this morning I pushed a little bit for myself, and I don’t care what the people think.”
“And me? You care what I think, Phillip?”
“Long as you don’t say stay away from Baton Rouge—’cause I’m going to Baton Rouge. When I come back I’ll make it up to you, if I have to start from scratch.”
“There ain’t nothing in Baton Rouge, Phillip.”
“I’ll have to find that out for myself.”
He went out the room. A moment later Patrick came in. He sat on the bed beside his mother and passed his hand over the side of her face. But she was still thinking about Phillip, and she seemed oblivious to the boy being there. Even when she took his small hand and held it to her lips, it was done more from instinct than awareness of him in particular. When she finally looked at him she wondered what she would do if someone tried to take him away from here. She took his face in her hands and began kissing him. Then she held him close to her body while looking toward the door.
9
When Phillip crossed the Mississippi River Bridge into Baton Rouge he went into the first gas station he saw. He had not come in to buy gas—the tank was more than half full—he had come in to check his address book. He knew that most of the people in the book knew Chippo Simon, but he didn’t know which of these would know where Chippo lived. Besides that, he didn’t want to go to someone’s house who would ask him a lot of questions and keep him talking the rest of the evening. He wanted to find Chippo soon as possible and go back home.
Phillip heard someone tapping on the window, and he looked out at a black youth wearing a wool cap with muffs pulled down over his ears. The boy stood in the bright lights of the gas station, his hot breath steaming the outside of the window. Phillip shook his head. The boy didn’t understand, and Phillip rolled down the glass.